


Maybe Derek Didn't Know

by words_reign_here



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Oblivious Derek Hale, sterek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-24 22:19:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14364888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/words_reign_here/pseuds/words_reign_here
Summary: Derek liked to think of himself as being a fairly aware guy but there were a few things that maybe he didn't know.





	Maybe Derek Didn't Know

“What’s wrong?” Derek asked and leaned against the fridge. He watched Stiles carefully wash the plate in his hand and then rinse it before he puts it in the dishrack.

“Huh?” Stiles said after a moment and blinked over at Derek, like he was surprised to find him there. “Oh, nothing. Just-” He raised one hand and gestured but it made no sense to Derek who looked at him with raised eyebrows. “No, I’m just thinking. Thinking thoughts.”

Derek looked out the window of the house he bought a long time ago. He gave up on rebuilding his childhood home. Wasn’t healthy, John had advised. Derek agreed. Now he was in the center of town, with a big yard and a big house that was regularly filled with the comings and goings of college kids and he wondered if he bought a frat house.

“Are we in trouble?” Derek asked, studying Stiles. They had grown closer when Scott left and Stiles found out that Derek was actually kind of cool.

“No,” Stiles said but that distant look didn’t leave his eyes. He reached up and patted Derek’s face with his soapy hand. “Really, it’s nothing to worry your pretty wolf face over.”

Derek frowned but left him to his thoughts.

*^*^*

Derek left Stiles to it for a few days because he knew Stiles pretty well by now. There had been an occassion or two that Stiles himself had even introduced Derek as his best friend, something that made him smile a little longer than necessary, especially if Stiles looked over at him.

Derek knew Stiles. He knew what Stiles looked like when he was studying a subject that captured him completely and Derek knew what it was like to tell Stiles to focus when the subject was anything less than that. Derek knew that nagging Stiles about something would result in Stiles pulling even farther away and Derek didn’t want that.

So he let Stiles think for a few days but even that was rubbing at Derek the wrong way when Stiles finally came to him.

Derek was in the kitchen, writing down a shopping list for later on. His wolves went through potatoes like they were going out of style and he looked down at the empty fifteen pound bag he had bought the day before. When Stiles came into the kitchen, he held the empty bag out to him and Stiles blinked at it.

“Didn’t you just buy that?” Stiles asked.

“Yes.” Derek snarled and threw the empty bag away and scrawled _potatoes_ down on the list. “Can’t you just magically grow some?”

“I suppose I could.” Stiles said and there was something in his voice that made Derek look up.

“You ok?” He asked.

Stiles let out a slow breath and smiled. It was a different smile. Derek knew all the ways Stiles smiled and this one was new. It was private and it said something to Derek that he could quite decipher.

“I think I’m in love.” Stiles said.

Derek’s jaw dropped and then he laughed.

Stiles _couldn’t_ be in love. He couldn’t be in love because Derek knew him better than most people, probably even John. He knew what Stiles looked like when he was gearing up for a fight. He knew what Stiles looked like when he was up all night studying and running on nothing but Adderall and Red Bull.

Derek knew the way Stiles looked, a little sad but determined, when he had to kill to protect his pack. He knew the way that Stiles looked when he was hurt and furious and wanted to lash out but knew he couldn’t.

Stiles lashed out this time, maybe involuntarily.

Derek ended up on his back, blinking up at the ceiling, and the front door slamming.

“I deserved that.” He told the ceiling.

*^*^*

Derek was puzzled.

Baffled.

Bamboozled.

He had known with every single one of his wolves when it was real. When it was love beyond love. He knew that each one of them changed just a little. That they lit up from the inside and became softer and sweeter. Even their scent changed just enough for Derek to notice.

And every single time, Derek knew before the pack member did.

He knew before Isaac proposed to sweet Chloe from the Sanchez pack. He knew way before Erica and Boyd. He knew all the times before Scott did and he only smiled when Kira became just like him.

But he didn’t see this with Stiles.

Granted, one of the first things Stiles had learned was how to mask his scent. So that explained that. But there was also something in the bond between the pack and Derek that changed subtly enough to make him laugh or roll his eyes (Scott) before he settled into that feeling of contentment.

There was none of that with Stiles.

All he felt was the same thing that he had always felt with Stiles; safety, comfort, home.

He wanted desperately to know what Stiles was like when he was in love. Was he goofier? Was that possible? Did he become a smooth talker? What that possible?

Derek had to meet this person and it wasn’t just to sate his own curiousity. It was because as the alpha, he had to welcome this person into their little family and, if they weren’t in on it, they had to be introduced to a whole other side of the world that most people didn’t know.

But he had to know:

Did Stiles sing love songs while he cooked? Did Stiles sketch goofy drawings of his person? Did he daydream? Was there a color that belonged to Stiles’s person?

Derek had to consider the possibility that maybe he didn’t know Stiles as well as he thought.

Because he didn’t know if Stiles kissed his person on the lips and nose and cheeks or if he just kept it to the lips. Derek didn’t know if Stiles would read out loud to his person or if they just read side by side, pressed close together. What if, god forbid, his person didn’t like Batman?

Then, clearly, they weren’t Stiles’s person, Derek reasoned.

He scrolled through his phone, looking for pictures of Stiles. There were more than a few. Here was Stiles jumping into the lake on the Preserve. Here he was teaching Erica how to drive. Here he was, explaining to his dad how Erica had taken out three mailboxes.

Here he was, opening up the Christmas present Derek had gotten him the year before; a Gryffindor scarf. Here he was, attempting to sketch a sleeping Derek. Boyd must have taken this one with Derek’s phone.

It caught him off guard. The way Stiles stared at Derek. Softly. Reverently. There was something there, in the way that his lips were parted and his gaze was steady, the way that he held his pencil against the sketchbook and the way he looked lit up from the inside out, looking at Derek while Derek couldn’t look back.

“Oh.” Derek said and put his phone down on the coffee table.

For good measure he pushed his phone to the other side of the coffee table.

Then he stood and went to the other side of the room.

“Oh.” Derek said and left the house.

That’s why he didn’t know why Stiles looked like he was lit up from the inside out. Because he always looked like that around Derek. That bond was always there.

Maybe Stiles had stumbled on it first, but it was there, Derek decided as he trekked through the woods.

Maybe Derek did know what Stiles was like when he was in love.

Derek did like Batman; Stiles often told him that he was broody enough to be the Caped Crusader. Stiles didn’t sing love songs. Stiles sang everything, badly. He didn’t become any smoother around Derek. He became goofier (yes it was possible) but he was a rock when Derek needed him to be.

Stiles didn’t write bad poetry for Derek. He recited it to Derek drunk, odes to his eyes and ass in equal measure.

Derek climbed into Stiles’s room, even though he didn’t live with his father anymore and Derek had a key to the front door. Stiles was there, flipping through some channels and barely glanced at Derek when he pushed the curtains aside.

But he did drop the remote when Derek cupped his face and stared at him and his hands shook when he wrapped those long fingers around Derek’s wrist. Derek studied him for a moment; those long eyelashes, those warm brown eyes, that smart ass mouth.

“I can see it now.” Derek said and pressed his mouth to Stiles’s.

Stiles returned the kiss for a moment and then he laughed against Derek’s mouth.

Derek pulled back and Stiles grinned up at him. “What if it hadn’t been you?”

Derek smirked. “Don’t kid yourself. It’s always been me and you.”     


End file.
